Yes, that really is Brad Pitt - playing a man 'born under unusual circumstances' in the Deep South at the end of the First World War. This may be the strangest journey an actor has ever embarked upon: Pitt's character, Benjamin Button, is fated to live his life in reverse. As a baby, he has the appearance of an 85-year-old man, albeit in miniature, and as he grows in size, he begins to look and act younger. Pitt plays Button from finish to start, aided by some impressive prosthetics and effects.

Early buzz and a handsome-looking trailer suggest that the movie, based on a short story by F Scott Fitzgerald and directed by David Fincher, is far more than a conceptual gimmick: the first US screenings reportedly left viewers in tears and it's already being tipped for Oscars glory. Let's hope that Fincher, whose Zodiac was one of last year's best films, can keep the sentimentality in check.

Expect the film to ask big questions about death, loss and love - the last being a particularly perplexing matter for a man ageing backwards. The women, played by Cate Blanchett and Tilda Swinton, who become romantically engaged with Button in the film will grow old as he discovers his youth. Munich screenwriter Eric Roth adapted the story, which, according to Fitzgerald, 'was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end'.